More than 500 counterprotesters held back by 300 police officers drowned out the message of a neo-Nazi group that marched through Orlando's historic black Parramore neighborhood Saturday.
Twenty-two members of the National Socialist Movement, some wearing khaki uniforms with swastika armbands, finished their march with a rally outside the federal courthouse that could not be heard over the jeering crowd.
The group shut down the rally 90 minutes early and left town.
Seventeen people were arrested, all of them from the crowd separated from the neo-Nazis by lines of police in riot gear.
Police and civic leaders expressed pride that the event ended without the violence some had feared.
"I've lived here since 1944, and I've never been more proud of Orlando, Orange County and Central Florida," said former legislator Alzo J. Reddick, one of the organizers of the Be Cool campaign that urged residents to ignore the march and the rally.
The police protection made it impossible to interview the neo-Nazi members, but organizers said last week the event was designed to highlight crime as a "race problem."
Some members of the neo-Nazi group carried signs saying "White people unite" and "white pride."
The counterdemonstrators responded with insults and signs of their own, including "No Nazis in Orlando" and "Greet hate with love."
Community leaders and police officials feared that the neo-Nazi march would fuel a riot, as it did last year in Toledo, Ohio.
In that incident, more than 100 people were arrested when counterdemonstrators clashed with police on Oct. 15. Twelve officers were injured.
No officers were hurt Saturday. Orlando police arrested 17 people in the crowd of counterprotesters, including four juveniles, on charges ranging from wearing a mask on a public way to one charge of battery of a law-enforcement officer.
Police said 14 of those arrested were affiliated with an anti-fascist anarchist group. One person was arrested after getting into a fistfight with other counterdemonstrators.
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